Palay harvest remains flat in Q1

The country's palay harvest in the first quarter remained relatively flat at nearly 4.7 million metric tons (MT) as planted area shrank, mitigated by higher yield, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said.

- By JASPER EMMANUEL ARCALAS

The country produced 4.69 million MT of palay in the first three months, relatively unchanged compared to the 4.68 million MT recorded in the same period last year.

Irrigated palay still accounted for the bulk of the country's harvest, contributing three-fourths of the total volume produced from January to March.

Irrigated palay output inched up to 3.66 million MT from 3.6 million MT, while rainfed palay production marginally increased to 1.04 million MT from one million MT, PSA data showed.

However, the overall palay production performance in the first quarter was still lower than the volume produced in the same period in 2023, when the country posted its record-high harvest of 20.06 million MT.